What's my item worth?

People often come into our store to inquire about selling or appraising their items. Many times items have a sentimental value to their owner that may not translate to big money. The simple answer is that items are only worth what a buyer is willing to pay. That number can be difficult to determine at times. There are several tools in the current online environment that have made this task easier. Google Image Search is a great place to start if you are having trouble identifying an item.

We will first cover Ebay. In Ebay you have access to an image search tool (in the search field there is a camera icon). This tool enables the user to find the item quickly and displays current items that are for sale. This however does not answer the question to what an item is worth. These results need to be filtered to only show items that have sold. Once this is displayed only auctions with multiple bids should be used to determine value as well as demand for the item in the market. If there are many results but none that had several bids, this item may not be desirable and that fact would need to be taken into consideration before pricing.

Another tool we use in the store is LiveAuctioneers. LiveAuctinoneers is a great tool for more expensive items like art, furniture or decorative glass. Live Auctioneers is a platform used by many auction house to hold online auctions. Current auctions as well as past auction results are all available. Similarly to ebay look for auctions with many bids to truly determine the worth of an item.